Red is a Colour
by IShouldBeOverThis
Summary: Inside Sherlock's head.  Warning: mention of drug use and suicide attempts.


There's glass and there's water and there's blo— No, wait, that's not it. There's water in a glass, and the water's full of blood, and…

What's next…

…blood?

Mycroft was there.

It was Mycroft's blood.

Is that right? That can't be right? Because Mycroft's in the tree…

_Where is he? Is he in the tree too? Is Mycroft in the tree because of him? No, it was a kite. They were flying a kite. Red with multi-coloured bows on the tail. Were they flying it together? He's so close to the ground, he can see the grass in his mind, small then (young?),…he held the tail and Mycroft ran slowly. And it flew so prettily in Mycroft's hands. That's right isn't it?_

(No, there's blood in the water and Mycroft's there, and Mycroft is screaming at him and…no that's not—)

_The kite's in the big oak in the garden, as tall as the house and as wide as the shed. Wider. The kite's in the tree. Mycroft says it's too high, but Sherlock begs, and Mycroft climbs. _

_Mycroft falls. Backwards, not like diving into a pool. There's blood and worse, he can see Mycroft's bone, and he wants to touch it, but Mycroft throws up and Mycroft is crying, and Mycroft never cries. It scared him so much he wet himself. (Did he?) Mycroft tells him he must run back to the house and get Nanny or Mummy or anyone he can find as fast as he can. "It's important, Sherlock."_

_So he runs on short legs. Yes, he's wet (and ashamed) and it's uncomfortable and he cries too as he runs. Because the garden is so long and uphill, and it isn't fair. _

_By the time he reaches the house he's blubbing so hard he can barely speak when they grab him and ask him. He manages "Mycroft…tree…blood," then everyone is running. And he's left alone._

_He's never been alone. He walks from the kitchen to the pantry where the biscuits are kept, but they're high…_

(Climbing a ladder and John's there behind him and… but he didn't know John when he was a child so wait—no, that's wrong)

_He tries to climb the shelves but he doesn't want to fall and cry and throw up like Mycroft so he has to leave the biscuits. He can't think of anything to do by himself so he sits down on the floor in his wet trousers._

_Nanny comes running back and holds him while she makes phone calls and a white lorry with lights comes and Daddy comes home and Mummy and Nanny and he go to H.O.S.P.I.T.A.L._

_(Someone must have put him in clean trousers.)_

_The hospital is fascinating until it's boring. _

_After forever they take him in to see Mycroft in a bed with his arm wrapped in white being fed ice cream by Mummy. _

()

_Mycroftgoticecream_Mycroftgoticecream_MYCROFTGOTICECREAM__!_

_Fine, he can have ice cream._

Ice cream would be nice. Do they have ice cream? Could he make ice cream with the milk and he'd need dry ice and… John should just go get ice cream. John? Oh, John's not here. That's right. John's not here because…Sherlock took drugs…and John would…wait, why did he take drugs? Is that why John left? Because of the drugs? No, wait, it's not like that. No, he waited until John left to run the experiment because John wouldn't approve. Oh, good. That's clear then.

"John, it's not like that—!"

He tries to cross the room and falls down. (When did the coffee table get so high?)

(The tap's running and the enamel of the bathtub is so white it burns in contrast to the red that's dripping and spreading out (you can measure the size of a molecule by spreading a substance on the surface…) on the water, (blood's heavier than water so it's sinking not spreading…) Mycroft's there and he's yelling and pulling Sherlock up and wrapping white towels around his wrists and—wait, is this when he broke the mirror? Because Mycroft wasn't screaming then. The screaming was him.)

_When Mycroft came home with his arm in the stiff white…thing—cast—Sherlock made himself a sling out of his pillowcase and wanted Mycroft to play invalids with him but Mycroft told him to get out and it was all his fault. _

_After that he cried again (him not Mycroft—Mycroft didn't cry again) because Mycroft was mean and Mycroft had never really been mean to him before and Mummy took him back to his bed and told him that Mycroft didn't feel well and was tired and everyone had had a very exciting day, so didn't he want to lie down and go to sleep?_

"_Can I have a cast?"_

"_No, Sherlock, casts aren't fun."_

"_Mycroft got ice cream."_

"_Mycroft's arm really hurts that's why he has the cast and that's why he got ice cream."_

_When he broke the mirror he didn't get a cast but he got a big bandage and he couldn't get it wet and that WAS boring. But he got ice cream that tasted funny and—_

Because it was drugged! Of course. They gave him pain killers in the ice cream.

This realization makes him laugh so hard that he's rolling about on the carpet, and oh, was the carpet always this nubbly and ticklish with all these reds in it? And did the wallpaper really always bulge like that, sort of swimming in and out? Is the ceiling really that close? Wouldn't he bump his head if he stood up—

Psychotropics.

He's tripping. He's done this before. He couldn't study chemistry and not try his hand at making lysergic acid diethylamide. He also taken psilocybin mushrooms and peyote but they didn't interest him much because they make sensory input unreliable. Like now because he's remembering when he cut (_his wrists_) himself as a child as though he's right there and everything is heightened too, too much, because he made something in a petri dish and took it to see if it could have been hallucinogenic and clearly it was, and he should write that down.

He's crawling to the kitchen and oh, the floor, all the textures of the floor, smooth and rough and warped, no, wait there was something…in the kitchen.

He sees the broken petri dish on the floor. There's still some red liquid in it (red, falling from the pipette just like blood, but it's not blood into water, it's chemicals onto agar). There's red out of the dish too, blood?

His hand's bleeding.

When did that happen?

When the dish fell.

Good thing that's sorted.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing to die from an experiment because John wasn't here? Should he write a note?

No, probably for the best just to lie down here on the floor, mind the glass.

When John gets home, Sherlock's reading in his chair. There's a bandage on his hand.

"Cut yourself then?"

"Obviously. Slicing some vegetables. Not important."

"You sliced vegetables?"

"They're on the counter. You should make something with them."

"Right. And you tidied the kitchen! Will wonders never cease?"


End file.
